


Cruel Clay

by tillwehavefaces



Series: Balladfic [1]
Category: Bruton Town (Roud 18), Folk Songs
Genre: Ballad Rewrite, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Darkfic, F/M, First fic in fandom, Folk Music, Folklore, Horror, M/M, Multi, Murder, Revenge, Songfic, Supernatural Elements, Twisted Tales, how many things can the author rhyme with bed?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28188957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tillwehavefaces/pseuds/tillwehavefaces
Summary: "A murder ballad of two evil brothers, one unassuming victim, and one revengeful sister."But this time the sister takes revenge for real.
Relationships: Jealous Brothers/Servantman, Noble's Daughter/Servantman
Series: Balladfic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066871
Collections: Rare Fic, Rare fandoms, Song Based FanFiction





	Cruel Clay

**Author's Note:**

> As with most folk songs, there are many versions. These are some of the best:  
> [Sandy Denny](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf1k1egkdDU/)  
> [Davy Graham ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDsTyb9769Y/)  
> [Logan English ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPWByUZya2Y&list=PLVDpl8vHMkO8hah_2cKfsChs7tTwOhDXc&index=12/)

In Bruton Town there lived a noble.

He had two sons and a daughter fair.

By night and day they were contriving

To fill their sister's heart with care.

One night, one night of restless slumber,

One brother rose up from their bed.

He heard the servant court their sister,

He heard they had a mind to wed.

They called this servant to go a-hunting.

He went out without any fear or strife.

But these two bold and wicked villains,

They took away this young man's life.

Hard they struck him and hard they used him,

Deep they dinted him and sore

And when these fiends had fulfilled their pleasure

The servant-boy did breath no more.

Down by the ditch there was no water;

There only briars and brambles grew.

There for to hide their bloody slaughter,

They in the ditch his body threw.

‘Oh, brothers, brothers, why do you whisper,

The serving-man, is he behind?’

‘We left him where we’ve been a-hunting,

We lost him where no man can find.’

She went to bed lamenting, crying

And weeping for her own true love

And as she slept she saw him lying

All dripping down with seed and blood.

His lovely curls were wet with semen,

His tender thighs agape and red.

‘Oh love, for thee I have been butchered

And I'm lying now in a bramble-bed.’

She early rose the very next morning,

Went to that place that once they knew

And there she found his body lying,

All covered with a gory dew.

All on his lips and cheeks was drying,

A salter broth than any brine

And she's kissed him, loudly crying,

‘What have you done, O brothers mine.’

Three days and nights she did stay by him,

She kissed his eyes that could not see.

And to keep him from the heat of the sunshine,

She tore the leaves from off the tree.

Three days and nights she did stay by him,

She thought her heart would break with woe,

When a cruel hunger came upon her

And to his breast she bent her low.

Under the bitter pall of moonlight,

This gentle maid, she did not blench

And on her true love’s heart she feasted,

With his life-blood her thirst to quench.

The moon was bright, the wind was sighing;

Her brothers in their bed did lie

As to her house she went a-hunting

To sate a hunger that would not die.

‘Oh, sister, sister, why do you whisper,

And won't you tell us where you've been.’

‘Stand up, stand up, you bloody butchers,

My love and I you have both slain.’

They saw her eyes were black as midnight,

They saw her teeth were strawberry-red,

They saw that on her breast she cradled

The dewy curls of her lover’s head.

Straightway the brothers fled before her;

They hid themselves as best they could

And through the halls of her home she hunted

As they her love had hunted in the wood.

It mattered not where they were hiding,

It mattered not, their cunning arts:

Her eyes would pierce the deepest darkness,

Her long white nails would pierce their hearts.

The moonlight brightened through the windows;

It glittered on her teeth so red.

‘Come out, my loves, we’ll play together

Since you have robbed me of my marriage bed.’

Fast they ran, but fast she caught them,

Fast she held them in her hands.

Their bones did crack as she caressed them

With fingers soft as iron bands.

‘Since you, my brothers, have been so cruel

To slay my love with wounds so deep,

One grave shall hold us all together

And forever in that bed we’ll sleep.’

**Author's Note:**

> That line 'a cruel hunger' struck me, and the rest spun out from there. The title comes from Keats’s verse retelling, Isabella and the Pot of Basil.


End file.
